US legacy in Cambodia, US ties in AustraliaThe sun makes a slow ascent in north-eastern Cambodia; the raysof morning light reflect off Ratanakiri’s characteristic red earth asthe local children start the short march to Borie Kammakor Muy Primary School. When the students enter the school gates,they are ushered into a corner of the courtyard by their teacher,Phok Chhueng.

‘Children, a cluster bomb has been found, don’t go behind theschool toilets; there is a bomb there that could kill you.’

The discovery of another cluster bomb is alarming but not surpris -ing. At this primary school and across communities in easternCambodia, people are still living with the aftermath of the secretiveUS bombing campaign carried out during the Vietnam War. Morethan 2.75 million tons of bombs were dropped, including clustermunitions (also called cluster bombs and sub-munitions).

In 2011, more than forty years after the conflict, Kav Phon whoteaches at the school was injured by a cluster bomb at work. Laterthe same year, fifteen-year-old student Phak Tra found a sub-munition while playing in the schoolyard. This year, in addition tothe cluster bomb discovered behind the toilet, a BLU-61 sub-munition sat in the bushes twenty to thirty metres behind theschool; its Urethane coating which makes it resistant to decay hadleft it looking brand new. Another three bomblets were discoveredover the three months following.

Civilians make up an astounding 98 per cent of cluster bombvictims. Dozens to hundreds of sub-munitions, or bomblets, arereleased from a single canister and cover areas the size of football

fields. As many as 30 per cent of these bomblets failto explode on impact; they lie insidiously scatteredacross the earth, waiting for the chance to slice skinand char flesh. The socio-economic impact is huge.With fields contaminated, the simple act of diggingfor potatoes can have deadly consequences.

The above is one example of the ongoing impact ofcluster munitions on a school community inCambodia’s most far-flung province. The list of casesthat could be put forward is comprehensive. Affectedcountries include Cambodia’s neighbours Laos to thenorth and Vietnam to the east, which were alsovictims of US bombing, and more recently Lebanon in2006, Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2001.

Wars will continue but when in the aftermath ofwar―decades after the conflict has ended―students,farmers, daughters and fathers are maimed and killed,we must question the type of weapons being used intimes of combat. Cluster bombs, like landmines, arean indiscriminate ‘legacy’ weapon.

Forged by civil society and humanitarian organisa -tions outside of the traditional United Nationsprocess, the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty was a supremelysuccessful convention. That treaty has near universaladherence, with 80 per cent of the world’s countriesagreeing to a blanket ban on anti-personnellandmines. Recognising the similarly indiscriminatenature of cluster bombs, efforts toward a sister treatybegan for cluster bombs, the Convention on ClusterMunitions opening for signature in August 2008.

This is the most significant disarmament agreementsince the Mine Ban Treaty. With nearly 60 per cent ofcountries on board, the convention has createdinternational norms against the use of cluster bombs.However, the biggest users, producers and stockpilersof cluster munitions―the United States, Russia,China, India, Pakistan and Israel―remain outside thiscomplete ban.

Australia has taken a different tack, indeed a pathsteeped in deceit. As reported in Arena Magazine 119,it signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions butproceeded to create domestic legislation thatcontradicts the treaty’s purpose. The new laws ignorethe convention’s call for a complete ban on the use,production, stockpile and transfer of clustermunitions. Australian legislation makes explicitallowances for these activities, permitting non-stateparties like the United States to stockpile cluster

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AGAINST THE CURRENT

Living with Cluster Bombs

Gemima Harvey...............................

A cluster bomb is marked during demining operations in Cambodia.

bombs in Australia, transfer them throughits ports and airspace, and for Australiantroops to actively assist the United Statesdrop cluster bombs. Now it looks likeCanada is following Australia’s lead.

August was a defining moment, revealingAustralia’s lack of commitment to the idealsset by the treaty. Despite more than twodozen submissions detailing the concernsof civil society and humanitarian organ -isations like Human Rights Watch and theInternational Committee of the Red Cross,an open letter signed by fifty eminentAustralians, a two year civil-societycampaign calling on Australian politiciansto ‘Fix The Bill’, condemnation of Australia’sposition in sections of the media and thebest efforts of the Greens to see theloopholes removed, the flawed bill passedthrough the Senate without amendment.

The Australian government and coalitionSenators united to pass some of theweakest ‘ban’ laws in the world. Asexpected a congratulatory statement fromDefence Minister Stephen Smith wasreleased that very day: ‘Australia’scommitment to reducing the humanitarianimpact of armed conflict was strengthenedtoday with the passage of a bill banning theuse of cluster munitions’.

For Australia to sign the treaty but adoptlaws that defy its very purpose is worse

10 2012–11 2012Nº 120

than dishonest. Loopholes in national laws allow complicityin the use of cluster bombs with non-state parties,undermining the message that these weapons areindiscriminate and therefore unacceptable.

Last year, leaked diplomatic cables exposed how Australiasecretly worked on the language of the treaty with theUnited States and other ‘like-minded’ states to underminethe ban before it negotiations began. Disturbingly, inAustralia’s efforts to water down the text, it lobbied for thesupport of Vietnam, a country still dealing with a clusterbomb legacy left by US bombing. Australia also soughtadvice from Washington about which African countriescould be convinced to vote with the like-minded in theirefforts to dilute the wording of the convention and haveloopholes included.

The Australian government has said that it will release astatement stipulating that non-state parties will not bepermitted to stockpile cluster munitions here. Butconsidering these cables, and Australia’s increasingcommitment to the US military posture in the westernPacific, which includes American military use of bases inAustralia, this comes as little assurance.

If Australia is truly committed to the eradication of clusterbombs as it claims, prohibition should have been cementedin law, standing firmly in place for future administrations.Statements about Australia’s international contribution tode-mining and victim assistance must be consideredalongside the simple fact that prevention is better thancure. Being a fortunate nation that has never experiencedcluster bomb contamination in schools, houses, fields andrivers it is perhaps easier for Australian politicians to passlaws that allow complicity in the continuation of thisdeadly legacy.

Looking to those countries where cluster bombs have beenused, and meeting the people these bombs affect, it isevident that Australia’s appalling legislation is quiteliterally a matter of life and limb. In Ratanakiri, MrChhueng said simply, ‘the children are scared of the bombsand cannot go where they want to go’. Parents of theseprimary school children lived through the bombing asyoung children and when the bombing finally stopped, theygrew up carefully avoiding cluster bombs in their parents’fields; their children, the next generation, are still livingwith the aftermath of this conflict.

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Living with ClusterBombs

Gemima Harvey

Gemima Harvey is afreelance journalistand photographerwho has lived inCambodia and haswitnessed thelegacy effects ofcluster bombsfirsthand. She isalso a committeemember andcampaigner for theAustralian Networkto Ban Land minesand ClusterMunitions.

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As many as 30 percent of these bomb -lets fail to explodeon impact; they lieinsidiously scat teredacross the earth,waiting for thechance to slice skinand char flesh. Thesocio-economicimpact is huge. Withfields contam inated,the simple act ofdigging for potatoescan have deadlyconsequences.

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Phok Chhueng is a teacher at Borie Kammakor Muy Primary School.